Full Idea
The epistemology of modality often focuses on (and pours scorn on) imagination or conceivability as a test of possibility, while ignoring the role of the imagination in the assessment of mundane counterfactuals.
Gist of Idea
We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals
Source
Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], 5.4)
Book Reference
Williamson,Timothy: 'The Philosophy of Philosophy' [Blackwell 2007], p.163
A Reaction
Good point. I've been guilty of this easy scorn myself. Williamson gives our modal capacities an evolutionary context. What is needed is well-informed imagination, rather than wild fantasy.